by Dalton Fury
“No time for that, Raynor,” Gangster said.
“You gotta get going, Kolt,” Yost added.
“What the fuck is the rush?” Kolt said. He took a knee and yanked his straight blade from the sheath on his assault vest. “Let’s at least give ourselves a fighting chance here. This ain’t going to be a cake walk.”
Kolt looked at Chief Weeks, nodded for him to kneel next to him, and began scraping a long fat line in the dirt. He scratched two arrows, one above the line, one below, then cut in small verticals to give the line an appearance of multiple train cars.
“All right, Stew,” Kolt said as he pointed to each mark with the sharp end of the knife, “front of train here, direction of travel, and north-seeking arrow.”
“Got it,” Weeks said as he settled his knees into dirt.
“Dealer already blew the bridges. Let’s assume they are nonpassable and that they won’t test them,” Kolt said, speaking with his hands as much as his blade. “Sync our approach with the train as it slows down.”
“Optimal for the engine is ten miles per hour, fifteen is pushing it,” Weeks said. He drew two ovals signifying Little Birds near the front left of the long line. “We’ll snake in from their six, and drop Four-Three and Four-Four on the sleeper you think Seamstress is in.”
“Shit, man, we don’t even know if they put him on the train at Kaesong Station or not,” Kolt said.
“Roger, which is why we need a simple plan, stick to our standard operating procedures,” Weeks said as he drew two more circles above the center part of the train.
Yost jumped in. “I agree. Keep it simple.” Yost quickly took a knee, leaving the others still bent over the makeshift terrain model. “You gotta get in the air, Kolt.”
Why is Yost pushing us? What’s with him? Is he worried about the fallout of failure here? Worried that if we don’t grab Seamstress that POTUS might add a mark against SEAL Team Six?
Kolt looked at Weeks, ignoring the SEAL commander. The flight lead was still staring at the terrain model, rehearsing his actions in his head, maybe hoping things would change and someone with more sense than what was being displayed would abort this crazy, high-risk death ride. Weeks looked up, locked eyes with Kolt.
“We good, Stew?”
“I’m not gonna lie, Racer,” Weeks said, “ain’t feeling it on this one.”
Weeks’s last comment shook Kolt. He hadn’t expected that, not from someone of Stew Weeks’s character. Someone with his experience. The guy flew with ice in his veins, always had. Hell, Kolt just had to think back about twenty minutes ago at the JSA.
Stew Weeks was human, like everyone else, which is exactly what was boiling over in his gut.
Am I fucking jacked? Why am I not questioning this mission more? Do I have a death wish?
Kolt slapped Weeks on the shoulder, stood up, and resheathed his knife. “We’ll go, but I need every operator available.”
“I’m going, let me grab my kit.” The SEAL LNO didn’t hesitate, and turned for the hangar.
“Channel seven is the assault frequency,” Kolt said. “Do a quick commex before you load.”
Kolt looked Yost dead in the eye. “I’ve got room for you and Colonel Mahoney, sir.”
“We both can’t go,” Yost said, “someone has to man the ship here.”
“Gangster?” Kolt said, now locked in a visual game of chicken with the former Delta operator. Kolt knew Gangster was no slouch, certainly not a coward. But, he often ran his mouth first, like a moment ago, and Kolt didn’t like it one damn bit.
“You in?” Kolt added.
Gangster hesitated, now seemingly trying to stir up the courage to match his earlier tough talk.
Kolt pressed it. “I’ve got room in my chalk. I could use your gun.”
“I don’t have a MAUL,” Gangster said.
“You won’t need it. Grab your shit!”
Gangster turned to Yost. “Sir, I’m going. I’ll command and control from the target.”
“Negative,” Kolt quickly said, not letting Yost reply. “You’re on the manifest as a shooter. Stay off my assault net, or stay here.”
Kolt expected Gangster to detonate, but didn’t care. Kolt needed assaulters, not micromanagement.
“Negative,” Gangster said, “I outrank you.”
“Rank don’t mean shit out here.”
“Who do you think you are, Raynor?” Gangster asked, inching closer to Kolt.
“I’m the fucking Noble Squadron commander, the ground force commander,” Kolt said as he bowed up to match Gangster’s move. “I’m the son of a bitch that is about to take my men across that damn border. You’re welcome as a shooter, or give me your space.”
“You have no authority to talk to—”
“Colonel Mahoney, grab your kit,” Yost said, cutting off Gangster and trying to downplay the friction. “Raynor’s got this. You work for him out there.”
Without waiting for a response, Kolt turned to tell Slapshot to update the boys and get loaded, but he had already bolted. Kolt spotted him heading for the huddled men, replacing his helmet as he walked.
Kolt and Weeks moved back to the waiting Little Birds. Noticing the refuelers finishing up the last gravity-fed z-bags, Kolt knew the hot refuel was complete. Kolt reached the edge of the pilotless Breaker Four-One’s main rotors, still rotating dangerously under the power of the Rolls-Royce engine, and paused at the obvious sight of blood on the floor of the cabin.
He turned back around, saw his men heading toward him and breaking for their respective chalks. He looked past them, hoping to see the SEAL LNO and Gangster exiting the hangar with their kit, but only seeing the two medics carrying Hawk on the stretcher through the door.
Just above the hangar, Kolt spotted something in the air, floating to the ground under a small white parachute. The SpyLite, having been autoset to recover to Inchon from Camp Greaves, drifted closer to the hangar’s roof. The Christmas-green inflatable landing pad, now obvious underneath the spy plane’s belly, cleared the edge of the roof by inches, seconds later impacting harmlessly with the spotted grass turf.
“That yours?” Weeks asked as he slipped his flight helmet back on his head.
“Depends who’s asking,” Kolt said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Objectives Beaver and Bear
Burning it up at 155 knots for the last eight minutes, CW3 Stew Weeks flew a flat and true two-degree azimuth from Inchon to Objective Beaver and Bear. Kolt realized he was gorilla-gripping the edge of the pod, freaked by the water below him. Images of the training run on the Queen Mary and the blade strike that put them in the drink flashed in front of him.
Weeks hand-railed the baby blue waters of the Yellow Sea on the left while keeping South Korea to his right until he reached the marbled Ganghwa Peace Observatory that marked the northwesternmost point of South Korea. Maintaining a steady four hundred feet above ground level, the birds crossed the exact spot where the Imjin and Yesong Rivers joined, busting into restricted air space above the barbed-wire-heavy demilitarized zone and entering North Korea inside the same infil corridor that the SEALs used the night before.
Kolt released his death clutch on the outer pod and exhaled.
Processing what was happening in what felt like warp speed, Kolt forced himself to put the water issue behind him and think the more pressing problem through. They had standard operating procedures for these high-risk assaults, but usually they had better situational understanding. A compound was one thing, a moving train another.
Kolt keyed his mike. “Check nods, check nods.”
Feeling Chief Weeks bank the helo right a few degrees, Kolt leaned out slightly to maintain vision at twelve o’clock. As they crossed the light brown and dry rice paddies and the greener hills southwest of Kaesong, Kolt reached up with his nonfiring hand to find the quick release holding his night-vision goggles up on his helmet. He thumbed the button, dropped them in front of his eye pro, and felt to make sure the lens caps were still on. Ko
lt looked through pin holes in the center of the caps, picking up various tints of cloudy lime green images passing by, and adjusted the focus ring for long-range recognition. Satisfied his optics were good, he lifted them away from his eyes and locked them into position.
“Target spotted, dead ahead,” Chief Weeks said over helo common. “Uhh, half mile.”
“I see smoke,” Gangster said, “bridges must have blown.”
Damn it! I knew I couldn’t trust him.
“Confirm one,” Weeks said, “not two.”
“Definitely Bear has blown, can’t be sure about Beaver,” Gangster said.
Kolt had told Gangster back at Inchon, in no uncertain words, that he was strap-hanging as a shooter and not as a decision maker. Kolt snapped his head around to look into the cabin, picking up half of Gangster’s body as the former Delta officer was on two knees and likely looking over the aux fuel tank and peering through the cockpit bubble, giving him the same perspective as Chief Weeks.
Kolt looked back to the front and extended his vision deeper. He picked up on the train, and could tell it had stopped.
“Breaker Four-One Charlie Mike?” Weeks transmitted as he maintained altitude, speed, and azimuth toward the train and Objective Bear.
Kolt immediately picked up on Stew’s tone. It was a question for sure, not a statement.
“Roger that,” Gangster said. “Seamstress is on that train.”
What?
Kolt forced himself to remain calm. This couldn’t be another Syria, but damn it, hadn’t Gangster paid attention in the briefings? Gangster had to know the North Korean order of battle, had to know that Kim Jung Un’s train always traveled the railways bookended by twin trains. Regardless of destination or railway, the leader’s armored train was always protected by time, distance, and armed soldiers in both directions. The route from Pyongyang to Kaesong was no different, something Kleinsmith had confirmed earlier that morning as the three trains passed their hide site. It wasn’t just a standard and prudent protection measure, but a shell game to force any would-be saboteurs to guess which of the three trains the North Korean leader might be on.
“Do a go-around, Stew,” Kolt transmitted.
“Say again,” Weeks responded.
“I say again, abort the approach, burn holes for a minute,” Kolt said. “That’s not the train we want.”
“Roger,” Weeks said. “All elements, pulling out ninety degrees, follow my lead.”
“Racer!” Gangster said, obviously heated by the call. “You can’t be sure that’s not the target train.”
“I’m sure. That’s the advance. The VIP train is second,” Kolt said.
“We can’t tell unless we get closer,” Gangster said. “We need to push forward to better observe with the nods.”
From the starboard pod at three hundred feet above ground level, Kolt Raynor’s head was on swivel. Along with the rest of his element, he strained to keep eyes on the still-smoking Objective Bear as pilot Stew Weeks and Breaker Four-One took lead in a circular orbit.
Ain’t that some shit? Weren’t you against the Q dots last night? Something about the good idea fairy.
Kolt ignored Gangster’s last transmission, knowing he didn’t need an open-comms catfight right now. The four-ship Little Bird formation remained roughly a kilometer south of the SEALs’ southern target, burning holes in the sky. From what Kolt could tell, the charge had detonated efficiently enough to get the job done.
“Looks like the train engineer couldn’t get her stopped in time,” Chief Weeks said from under his flight helmet.
Kolt agreed but didn’t reply. He was seeing the same thing. Kleinsmith and his frogmen weren’t postured to take advantage of their handiwork anymore, but they had done their job. The North Korean train’s rust-colored engine had left the train tracks soon after reaching the lead edge of the bridge, and now teetered off the north side. Still hitched to the first passenger car, but hanging almost vertical above the gully below, it looked like a house of cards that could go at any moment.
Kolt counted three green passenger cars sporting horizontal yellow racing stripes, and a mirror-image engine serving as the caboose. The four cars provided enough counterbalance to prevent the entire five-car train from collapsing into the valley.
The SEALs’ plan had been to trap the VIP train between the two blown bridges, but as often happens, Murphy had a vote. When the Red Guards compromised Kleinsmith’s Red Squadron, they had no choice but to detonate early and bug out. It wasn’t ideal, but it isolated Seamstress’s train on a three-mile stretch of track back to Kaesong Station.
Kolt knew he wasn’t going to waste time trying to explain all that to Lieutenant Colonel Rick Mahoney.
Something vibrated in Kolt’s right cargo pocket.
My cell?
Kolt keyed his mike as he reached to dig the phone out, careful not to drop it. “All elements, stand by. Cell call from the JOC.”
“Raynor!” Kolt yelled into the phone, trying to overcome the engine noise as he slipped it under his right Peltor ear pad and pressed it close to his ear.
“Seamstress confirms the North Korean attack on the Pacific Fleet, Kolt. It’s not a bluff!”
“Hawk?” Kolt yelled, unable to fully understand what she said. “Speak up!”
“Seamstress knows where the missile sites with the mini nuke warheads are, knows all about Marzban Tehrani. You have to bring him out alive.”
“Working on it!” Kolt said, wondering why Yost hadn’t seen to it that she had been shot full of morphine by now and drifted off to the candy slides in happy land. “Is that it? Kinda busy.”
“We’re struggling to translate the note, not done yet though,” Hawk said.
“Shots fired!” CW3 Weeks announced over helo common.
“Roger,” Slapshot said, “confirm muzzle blasts from here, too. Far for AKs though.”
Kolt dropped the call with Hawk and shoved the cell back into his cargo pocket.
“Breaker Four-One, take us east toward Kaesong, hug the tracks,” Kolt said.
“What the hell are you talking about, Raynor?” Gangster said.
Kolt bit his tongue and again ignored Gangster. “Stew, we’re looking for the next train. The one at Bear is the advance, not our target.”
“Roger,” Weeks said, “Breaker Four-One is out at nine o’clock. Staggered trail right.”
North Korean VIP train
Kang Pang Su braced for the next blow, spitting blood from the left crook of his mouth that ran down the length of his wrinkled face. Every few seconds, enough warm blood pooled in one vertical crease to funnel a heavy drip of blood onto the collar of his white city shirt.
His right eye was already swollen shut, his eyelid grossly formed into a bubbled mess, forcing him to view the world through his bloodshot and black left eye.
“Who is the woman?” one of the uniformed guards demanded.
“I do not know,” Kang said. Actually, it wasn’t a lie. Kang had never met Cindy Bird before, but he wasn’t ready to admit his collaboration against the people just yet.
“American CIA!” the guard shouted.
“No,” Kang said, “I do not know. She was crazy!”
It had only been about a minute since several North Korean soldiers had thrown him to the carpeted floor before one lodged his boot on the side of Kang’s face. They wasted no time in stripping Kang Pang Su of his dignity. Immediately after being loaded on the passenger car train at Kaesong Station, they yanked his black suit jacket off him, one arm at a time, and hung it on a tall coatrack near one of the ballistic windows before removing his shoes without bothering with the laces. Kang had tensed as they tugged violently at both pants legs, forcing the belt around his hips, and leaving his gray boxers a few inches lower than normal.
Kang heard the train bell and engine power up, and in a few seconds the engine began to slowly pull forward, heading west back to Pyongyang. He saw a soldier step behind him, felt a white blind slapped over his ey
es and uncomfortably tied, pulling pieces of jet-black hair from their roots.
Kang felt someone’s breath on his left ear, figured it was the soldier that tied the knot, and worried he might bite his earlobe next.
The guard whispered barely loud enough to drown out the sound of the propaganda footage looped on the interior wall television. “Traitor!”
Kang felt him test the ties securing his wrists behind his back.
Kang didn’t reply, knowing there was not much he could do at the moment. Further resistance would likely only result in more backhands to the face, or toes of a boot to the ribs. He was going to die, of that he was sure. Deep in his heart he knew he deserved to. He had betrayed his country. All the anger and loss that had fueled his simmering rebellion had been washed away in a tidal wave of guilt and remorse.
“You are an embarrassment to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
Kang couldn’t see the man speaking in front of him, but easily recognized the voice. It wasn’t the guard, but someone of authority. Someone who Kang knew would be just as eager to kill Kang as he was to kill himself.
“Remove his blindfold.”
Kang felt the blind pulled from his head, and winced at the hair that went with it. He blinked hard several times, trying to focus his left eye on the man in front of him.
“This, from the deputy secretary of science and education?” Pak Yong Chol said. “Just like your own son, you have dishonored your family.”
Kang thought back to Kim Il Sung Square, where only a few weeks ago he and Pak had stood motionless, shoulder to shoulder, as they watched another traitor to the Motherland ravaged by starving dogs, torn apart limb from limb.
“I am innocent,” Kang said. Despite his shame, he would not bow to this pig. “There has been a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding, you say?” Pak said, pulling both sides of his dress coat around his fat belly and fastening the lower button.
“Yes.”
“Then you can explain these foreign items,” Pak said as he held up two small white plastic devices.
Kang looked hard at the two odd objects in Pak’s hands.
